Protests against Israel continue at Columbia University after more than 100 arrests

Pro-Palestinian students resumed a third day of anti-Israel demonstrations and protests on Friday at Columbia University in New York, and say their resolve has been strengthened despite mass suspensions and arrests.

Dozens of activists denouncing Israel’s war in Gaza They remain camped on the west lawn of Columbia University on Friday, a day after New York City police arrested more than 100 people on suspicion of criminal trespass during a pro-Palestinian demonstration on campus.

Now, students from several other universities are planning demonstrations in solidarity with protesters at Columbia University, according to CNN.

• Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of North Carolina will hold a solidarity rally on Friday.
• Students for Justice in Palestine at Boston University announced an “emergency demonstration.”
• Students for Justice in Palestine at The Ohio State University announced an “emergency protest in support of the Gaza solidarity camp.”
• The Palestinian Solidarity Committee at Harvard University announced a student strike “in solidarity with the steadfast students of Columbia.”

The controversy at Columbia University, which yesterday led to the arrest of a hundred students and the indefinite suspension of many of them, who have been ordered to “immediately” leave the institution and the university residences in which they are staying, continued on Friday, already leading to a protest over retaliation against students.

Faced with the indefinite suspension of many of their colleagues, pro-Palestinian youth ask for ‘amnesty’ (that is, forgiveness for their ‘crimes’), although without deviating from the demands that motivated the sit-in in the first place: greater transparency from the University regarding the institutions it finances and the dispossession of its investment in companies that manufacture weapons and that, according to students, collaborate with Israel’s war in Gaza.

After yesterday’s tension, The atmosphere that was breathed today in the improvised camp was one of extreme cautionwith the organizers meticulously controlling who entered and left the premises where students gather with Palestinian flags, banners, pots and pans, food and even blankets and pillows, according to EFE.

The sit-in has attracted the attention of the media and people outside the University – who are now gathering at its doors in support of the students of the sit-in -, and even Today Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon appeared to show her support, who has not hesitated to join the students’ slogans.

The criticism from students regarding the transparency of the University and its investments has been going on for some time, but now it has returned to focus after a hearing by the president of Columbia this Wednesday before Congress, where she had to defend herself against accusations of anti-Semitism by Republican legislators.

Her responses, in which she tried to escape a similar controversy that led her Harvard counterpart to resign, disappointed the students and sparked the sit-in, although since the war in Gaza began on October 7, this is not the first pro-Palestinian protest. on campus, but the most numerous.

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